News FrieslandCampina
Keurentjes: 'Proposal is not a factory quota'
The proposal that FrieslandCampina announced on April 16 is often described as a factory quota. However, it certainly isn't. Frans Keurentjes discusses the members' meetings and the suggestions made in the members' magazine 'Melk'. At the end of the summer, the Members' Council will discuss a detailed proposal.
FrieslandCampina announced on 16 April that it was working on a top dairy line, but the proposal for a growth agreement was even more drastic. A proposal that was seen by many members as a factory quota. "That's what it's called regularly, but it certainly isn't. A quota is a limitation, but our collective continues to grow," says Keurentjes in the members' magazine.
Who gets the bill?
However, something fundamentally changes. "The change is that too rapid growth is no longer for the account of all members, but for the dairy farmer who has grown more than the market demand."
Keurentjes explains the proposal one more time. "The withholding of €0,10 is only applied if the collectively agreed volume is exceeded. And it only applies to the milk that rises above that collective volume."
It does not mean that the suggestions (made at the 80 member meetings) end up in a vacuum. The meetings, which the FrieslandCampina foreman describes as follows: "The questions and discussions were often fierce. It is clear to everyone that this is about something."
Divide growing space
There are 3 points that keep coming back. "How do we divide the growth space that is freed up by quitters? Is this free for everyone, or do we want to steer towards this as a cooperative? The next point was how we deal with young farmers: does the proposal offer them (but also the other members) sufficient space for a healthy future? and how do we deal with individual bottlenecks around the comparison volume? For us, the starting point is that development is important for every company. The modern cooperative is: we do it together, but not all in the same way. The conversation for us as a collective, is about the question: how do we divide the pain and the opportunities in our cooperative?"
Ultimately, Keurentjes is positive about the future of the cooperative. "What gives me confidence in the future are the facts. I rely on the good track record of our companies. Look at the milk price and performance premium of the past few years and you can see it. So far we have always done well and we have to keep it that way. Past success shouldn't make us lazy, but we can and should all rely much more on the strength of our companies."
Herman van den Pol
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